At SIBUR, they told about the course of replacing natural rubber
Starting from 2024, SIBUR, following the Russian government's directive regarding the sovereignty of the tire industry, has been working on replacing natural rubber with synthetic analogs. As reported in an interview with RIA Novosti at the WEF-2025, the director of the "Transport" division of the company, Anatoly Svetlikov, together with partners, has already produced about 500 experimental tires without natural rubber content, and the experiment showed a positive result, "so now we have a large project under the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which aims to substitute natural rubber in tires with synthetic ones".
In the spring of 2025, a new brand of rubber was released, and tires with its application have already been tested jointly with Ikon Tyres, and SIBUR is also cooperating with all tire and RTI manufacturers operating in Russia, such as Pirelli, "Cordiant" and "Voltyre-Prom".
"There is close interaction in the development of: adaptation of recipes, development of new solutions and substitution of traditional materials with synthetic ones. With some, we have moved further, with others, we are just starting cooperation in this direction," Svetlikov noted.
"In general, replacing a brand, and even more so a type of rubber, in tires is much more difficult than replacing a brand of polymer in the production of any auto component," he said. "Each tire company has its own unique recipe, which is not disclosed. Therefore, we are now developing new solutions with our partners, with the involvement of Chinese institutes specializing in tire production recipes, from various types of synthetic rubbers that will allow us to replace natural rubber".
Regarding whether the available capacities can ensure the replacement of natural rubber, Svetlikov said that "we will not need to build any additional production to meet the growing demand. In terms of capacity, we rank third among global manufacturers. We are present in most tires produced in the world. Currently, the capacity utilization rate is 100%, which is due to the diversification of our sales geography. When there is an additional need for rubber in Russia, the required volume can be easily ensured by removing part of the products from export".
A SIBUR representative also emphasized that Russia is currently generally provided with polymers and rubbers, and there are no risks of shortage of any brands. "Let's not forget that it's already almost 2026, and the departure of European companies took place two or three years ago. Now the market feels quite confident," he noted.
According to him, in the segment of rubbers, until 2022, significant volumes of products were imported from abroad, but now the share of imports has fallen to less than 1%. "We reacted quite quickly to the departure of foreign companies and over the past few years have developed a large number of recipe solutions within the import substitution program. We also provided technological support to tire companies, since developments and all recipes were previously based in European headquarters," Svetlikov said.